HUGHTON ON: SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY

13 February 2015

James Hilsum

At his pre-match press conference, Chris Hughton reviewed Sheffield Wednesday’s season to date, spoke about his counterpart in the opposite dug-out, Stuart Gray, and coping with a hectic fixture schedule.
Sheffield Wednesday:
“They’ve done very well; certainly with what’s gone on at the club and the change in ownership. I think they’ve done very well this season, they’ve got a fairly consistent team. They’ve had a little bit of a dip in form during more recent times, but that’s probably more of a testament to the good first half of the season that they had. It’s a tough place to go and quite a difficult pitch as well at this particular moment, so we certainly know we’ll be in for a tough game.”

Stuart Gray:
“It’s a good fit; he’s managed the club very well. He is a manager with a lot of good experience and is a very good coach. He’s been an assistant manager as well, so he’s been around for quite some time. I think he’s had a very good apprenticeship on all aspects of managing, being an assistant and a coach; he’s using that to very good effect at the moment.”

Finding the right balance:
“We’ve had contrasting performances, from playing very well in the Ipswich game to not doing so well against Forest. I certainly felt that we did not deserve to lose, but we conceded three goals. It is about getting that balance. In the Cardiff game, we certainly got part of that balance right by being defensively solid as a team, but then it’s about having opportunities to score goals as well. The teams that are in the best form and the teams that are at the top of the division are the teams that have struck that balance the best.”

Edging close to the bottom three:
“I must admit it’s not something I’m thinking about; I’m only looking ahead to the next game. It’s very difficult to legislate what’s going on around you and unfortunately Millwall have picked up a couple of good results that have seen them closer to us than what we would have liked. But also what you have got, is some other teams like Charlton who have been drawn into it by their lack of form. Of course we don’t want to be in the position that we are in, but there are still 16 games left to go and we have to very much focus on every game. It is hard to think about so many of the different permutations because once you start thinking too deeply about it, then you don’t know what’s going to happen. You can’t anticipate results, all we have to do is make sure that we get our results right. We need to start improving on our recent run of results and it’s good that we’ve got a few players back in the fold.”

A hectic schedule:
“The games are coming thick and fast; after a defeat you have to analyse where you can improve, where you can try and win a particular game and what tactics you have to use. Ultimately though, it’s just about the next game and trying to get a result, because you can’t afford to look too far ahead in the position we’re in. That’s not just us, that’s the same for everybody. So no, we’re very much focussing on the next game and making sure we do our best to get the points we need.”